Up in Motley County over the weekend looking for some mule deer, but did not see any of the big boys...shot a nice 9 pt whitetail as did my buddy, I also shot a hog. However, his ranch is loaded with turkeys and we had a group come by us and he told me to shoot one...So, I picked what I thought to be the biggest one out of the bunch...10 inch beard and when i went to retrieve him, I noticed a radio transmitter on his back with a long antennae going down his back....I took it and have the number to call, the number is from a man at Texas Tech....really curious on what he has to say about the bird and such... Will keep you posted.


Red Raider, if you read this,,,,do you know anything about this program?????

Keep us posted on this...

Good thing you didn't hit the transmitter box. Bet those suckers are expensive. So, whose property is the transmitter? Mabye season tickets for an exchange.

The transmitter is about the size of a c battery in diameter...a little longer....It belongs to Texas Tech..they do it twice a year on WMA...this one was done on the Matador WMA...The ranch I hunt borders the actual Matador ranch, but not the WMA....that is about 10 miles away...Transmitter can be reprogrammed for about $100 and new would cost about $200....typically they place a leg band on the bird, but the toms usually loose them 50% of the time so the man said. I called him and he was super glad I called him to report it..The bird had a ten inch beard and they do put the transmitters on hens as well...That is an either sex county in the fall. He wanted to know if I could see it when I shot it..NO...because they want it to be as obscure as possible..and he wanted to know if it was worn or the bird was worn or callused from it..both NO....Anyway, he was going to pull the research and email it to me...I will post what I find out...Also, I will mail him the transmitter back. He will send me a leg band that they use..pretty cool..heck, I might stick it with my duck bands and goose bands...

He told me the range is about 10 miles, they have been doing it for 4 years around the panhandle area at other WMA's and they typically do about 70 per site. I am curious, so the info he send me will be worth the read.

That is really great and I am glad you posted this and checked into the transmitter. TP&W is constantly doing research, along with USF&W. I was on a Pronghorn hunt in Wyoming and one of the guys shot a collared buck. We didn't realize it was collared till we got up to it. I know that shooting banded ducks has always been a big thing so you can find out where the duck was raised, or was banded, but getting a turkey or a big game animal marked like that is really special. I have met some of the biologist up at the Matador, and they really conduct some interesting studies on the wildlife in that part of Texas.

Congrats on a turkey band. I would definitly put it up on display with your other bands. Awesome to have the info that they have on him. I am really curious to find out the age of the bird. Big contraversial subject around here on how old a bird is to have that long of a beard.

They net the birds or trap them....I am not sure how fast a beard grows, but I know 10 is long and beards tend to get long and then wear down as the birds drag them when strutting. I am curious as well. Though I was close to the WMA, but on land that hardly gets hunted and is surrounded by the Matador Ranch and also another ranch that does not get hunted period..the game there is not too concerned with humans....WE typically see lots of animals, like the bobcat that we saw and it stared at us in the road from 40 yards away...WE had several turkeys..hens...that would just run along the road in front of the truck...one even stopped to grab a kernel of corn while the others ran..LOL...that was pretty funny. We did glass several other turkeys to see if they had this transmitter on them, but could not see any. In my brief phone conversation to the man at Texas Tech, he told me they tried to put them on the birds so that they would or would not be the deciding factor to shoot or not to shoot the turkey.

I work with turkeys at my job, NO I mean real live Rio Grande strain, and we raise turkeys at home. I think that beards are like antlers and are influenced more by nutrition that anything else. I have two at work that have 8 or 9 inch beards and the oldest bird that runs loose has a 10 to 12 inch beard. The first two are only about 2 years old, the last bird is about 4. We have 4 gobblers at the house, the oldest has a 5 to 6 inch beard, but he is almost, full blood, domestic Bronze, the others are Bronze -Rio Grande hybrids, and their beards are a little longer. The first bird is 4 and the other are 2. Since beards are made up of basically modified feathers, I would imagine that birds in areas with plenty of food would have longer beards than those from areas that are more marginal. I feel that possibly spur length might be a better indicator, although that to may depend upon nutrition.

Just some info I picked up off the Texas Tech Website.

I wish that program was there back in 1986, maybe it was and I did not know it...I might have stayed in Lubbock and not transferred to Baylor..

http://www.rw.ttu.edu/dept/newsletter/researchhighlights-2003/default.htm

http://www.rw.ttu.edu/dept/newsletter/researchhighlights-2003/default.htm

I am going to email Red Raider from this board, I think he is in the undergrad program for this at Tech. Maybe he can shed some light on it for us too.

Here is some of the early info I got on the bird..

"Mr. Bradbury-

Sorry- I had your email as .com . . .Thank you for your help.

Thank you very much for contacting us in regard to the turkey you harvested. The information you have provided will prove very valuable as we try to determine effective ways to manage wild turkeys. The bird you harvested was one of 33 captured on the 6th of January in the Cow. Hollow portion of the Matador wildlife Management Area. It was the 270th bird outfitted with a radio transmitter there and subsequently was affectionately referred to as M-270. According to our records the bird weighed 7 kilograms and was classified as an adult male this past winter. The bird was last located on the Matador WMA on the 23rd of March. He was relocated on the 7th of April 17.6 kilometer SW of his previous locations. He apparently localized in that area until the end of the summer. The locations I have end on the 30th of August. Using those data, however, I estimated his home range as approximately 8 square kilometers. I have cced Ryan Swearigen, the graduate student in charge of things at the Matador. HE may be able to provide you with some more info on the bird during the fall months. If you would like to find out more about the project you are welcome to check out the project website at http://www.rw.ttu.edu/turkeyproj/ . If you do not mind please let us know the day and approximate time you harvested the bird. Also, if you could provide a brief description of the habitat and the flock he was with (8 toms feeding . . . ) that would be great. If you got any specifics such as beard length, spur length or weight that would be of benefit too. I will get this band out to you tomorrow. Once again, thanks so much for helping us out. Please don't hesitate to contact me in the future should any questions arise. Continued hunting success and sincere thanks"

Awesome! Too bad they don't know his age either. Looks like he sure covered a lot of territory! I didn't know they would range that far. That's something I never would have thought. At least you have a name for him now M-270. How cool is that!!!!!???!!! Again, Congrats!!!

M 270 got it from a 7mag....and not one bit of breast was destroyed....LOL

This is the latested email about the bird I shot.
Mr. Bradbury,
My name is *********. I am a new student to the turkey project, and have been living in Paducah for the past several months. I know you've already been bombarded with questions, but if you have the time I would appreciate it if you could answer a couple more. These questions are on the mortality sheet we fill out whenever a turkey dies.
1. Would you consider the habitat as: crop, range, riparian, or other.
2. If you could give a brief description of the habitat where the bird was shot. (ex. Mesquite grassland, wheat food plot, etc.)
Also if you are ever around and have time, I would like to visit the kill site and obtain GPS coordinates from that spot.

Here's what I can tell you about the bird from the past several months. The last time I had a live signal on the bird was on November 3rd, and he was roosted just south of the 70/62 tongue river bridge on Wylie's property. Every night that I located him, he was always using that roost. Unfortunately, I left shortly after that on a trip and was unable to track him until after Thanksgiving. The first night I returned was Saturday the 27th, I believe when you shot the bird, I was out that night trying to find him on the roost. I could only pick up a faint signal from the bridge, and it was to the Northwest. Knowing now that the bird was already dead, was the transmitter still on the property from which the bird was taken? I tried the signal again two nights later, but was unable to hear it.

I appreciate all of the responses to our questions. If you have any other questions feel free to contact me by email or at ***********. Thank you.

so thats what it looks like. last pic is a little blurry.